


I See Fire

by Tehri



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Memories, Oath of Fëanor, Tale of the Silmarils
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-01
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-07-11 16:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7060345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tehri/pseuds/Tehri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>During his time in Rivendell, Bilbo translated several books into Westron. One of them brings back painful memories, and makes him see eerie similarities.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I See Fire

Papers were strewn about the room. The inkbottle on the desk had been overturned and leaked over the unfinished draft, which had been torn to pieces. The quill lay forgotten beside it. The book with the original text lay carefully tucked away on a corner of the desk, safe from the ink, though he yearned to simply throw it into the fire instead. The hobbit sat curled up in his bed and stared blindly at the opposite wall, attempting to will memories to disappear from his mind and phantom-voices to cease.

Life in Rivendell had treated Bilbo Baggins well. He had been happy with his choice, to leave the safe hills of the Shire behind and spend the remainder of his life in the house of Lord Elrond; the Last Homely House, as he heard it called by many. Time hardly seemed to pass at all there, and he delighted in seeing the seemingly sudden changes of seasons.

But most of all, he had been delighted at hearing from Lord Elrond himself that he might make use of the library as much as he wished, and that if there was anything specific that interested him, he had but to ask where he could find it. Far was it from Bilbo’s mind to deny that he had inherited his father Bungo’s (and, indeed, his grandfather Mungo’s) great love of books and languages, and he spent much time tucked away in a quiet corner of the library with a small fort of books surrounding him. Though it had taken him a bit of time, as well as a bit of help from Elrond and other inhabitants of the house, he had refreshed his memory of and learnt anew the tongues of the Elves.

It was in light of this that the hobbit made the decision to translate some of the books in the library. He started out easily enough, with small collections of songs and poetry that caught his fancy. But soon he began to try his luck with books and scrolls on history. Elrond had in his library many tomes that recounted the tale of Arda itself, as the Elves knew it to be. It was among these that he found the tale of the Silmarils.

Elrond had at first seemed surprised to see the hobbit carrying that particular book away from the library, and had asked if it was indeed a subject he found interesting.

“I should say so,” Bilbo had answered with a laugh. “Is it not the tale of events that even today affect this world?”

“It is indeed,” Elrond had agreed, with a small tight smile gracing his face. “Though I wonder if you might not find other tales more to your taste.”

“You cannot simply dangle a history-book before the nose of a Baggins and then snatch it away from them and suggest they read something else,” Bilbo objected. “If I find this is not to my taste, I shall simply find another. But I cannot know with but a glance.”

And he had taken the book with him to his rooms and begun to read. After a while, he had started to translate small sections. And then, finally, he had read of how the Silmarils had been stolen away by Melkor, and how Fëanor had defied the will of the Valar. The more he read, the more his hands shook. Every sentence brought to mind phantoms of the past.

Hence where he now sat, curled up on his bed as a small child. He could hear the words spoken by Fëanor to the Noldor in his head, so filled with pride and fury; and even more, he could hear words that had been spoken in his own lifetime, also they filled with pride and fury and a fierce determination to reclaim what was taken from them.

Memory after memory surfaced in his mind; he saw before his eyes a king, stern-faced and determined, who had lost his homeland and lived only for the will to reclaim it. He saw battle after battle, and a town consumed by flame. He felt hands clutching at his shirt, shaking him like a rabbit, and heard words spoken in rage.

And suddenly, there was a gentle hand upon his shoulder, and he heard Lord Elrond’s kind voice speaking to him:

“Bilbo? Are you well, my friend?”

He looked up, eyes quickly darting over to the mess on his desk, and then met Elrond’s gaze and shook his head.

“I don’t suppose that I am,” he said quietly, his voice shaking somewhat. “You may have been right that there would be other tales more to my taste…”

Elrond sat down beside him, never removing his hand from the hobbit’s shoulder, and gave him a solemn look.

“I worried that with all you have seen, the tale of Fëanor might not suit you,” he said softly. “Though a tale of bold deeds, it is not something that a hobbit might consider a good tale.”

“Oh, goodness, no, that’s not it,” Bilbo sighed. “I just… I was reminded of something. Of someone. And perhaps I did not react well to it.”

“Thorin Oakenshield,” Elrond said quietly, nodding slowly. “Is that whom you were reminded of?”

And Bilbo nodded weakly.

“He had a way with words,” he said. “As… As Fëanor did. And reading that speech, that Fëanor used to sway the Noldor, I… I was reminded of what Thorin said, about the dwarves needing to seize their chance to take back Erebor.”

“You see a similarity between them?” Elrond asked.

“I can’t say if it is truly a similarity,” Bilbo answered. “But there are… certain elements that remind me of all that Thorin did.”

“Yet he was not ever as Fëanor,” Elrond said firmly, and the hobbit blinked in surprise at the fervour in his voice. “What Fëanor did, he did for his own gain and not that of his people, though he may have seen it so at the time. He defied the Valar and spoke the very words that had been put into his mind by Melkor. His oath was not to keep his people safe and give them a home; it was only to hunt down whoever held the Silmarils, and to reclaim them for his own.” He smiled at the hobbit suddenly. “But Thorin… He gave his life for his people. He lived for none but them, and his very last great deed in life was to reclaim their homeland. For all that he fell prey to a sickness, he recovered and triumphed. And it was all for his people’s gain, and nothing else.”

“He should never have died,” Bilbo said after a while of consideration. “He would have made a great king, had only fate been kinder.”

“Fate is fickle, my friend,” Elrond said kindly. “Just as it claimed the life of Fëanor when his goal was in sight, it claimed the life of one of the greatest of Durin’s descendants when he had finally triumphed after years of hardship.”

They sat so in silence, listening to the sound of birdsong coming through the open window. Bilbo thought of Thorin, and little by little the memories of the bad were pushed away by the memories of the good. He thought of how often the dwarf had come to his aid, despite having said that he would not be responsible for the hobbit’s fate. He thought of how they had come to respect and care for each other. He thought of his laughter, his smile, and his deep rumbling voice. And he thought of how Thorin’s last wish in life had been to part in friendship from him.

“Perhaps,” Elrond began, breaking the hobbit out of his reveries, “we should clean this up. You may of course keep the book here, if you should wish it, but I should imagine that you would want some tea.”

And Bilbo smiled at him and nodded.

“Tea sounds lovely,” he agreed. “And I think that I’ll keep the book, for now. I hardly managed to start translating it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Don't mind me, I was listening to an audiobook of the Silmarillion and got to the part where Fëanor holds his speech for the Noldor and swears his oath, and maybe I saw similarities that were painful and I wrote this in like 20 minutes and now I'm gonna go back under my rock.


End file.
